iOS 26's Moving App Icons Made Me Feel Dizzy, so I Turned Them Off

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If you’re anything like me, you might have moving app icons on your iPhone Home Screen right now. It took me a few days to notice this, but now when I tilt my phone up, down, left, or right, my icons will actually shift in that direction, and the highlights the new Liquid Glass effect added around them will move as well.

Technically, this isn’t a new feature. Apple calls it the “parallax effect,” and if you’ve ever played an old 16-bit sidescroller, you’ve probably seen it before. It’s when a background moves at a different speed than the foreground. The parallax effect first got added to iOS way back in iOS 7, but ever since iOS 16, users have been complaining that it’s been broken. I certainly hadn’t seen it over the past couple years, but now that seems to have changed.

During the second iOS 26 beta, users reported that the parallax effect was back, and now that iOS 26 is live, it still appears to be working. Finally: It only took Apple three years to fix that bug.

The problem? It turns out I don’t actually like the parallax effect on my app icons. I don’t represent everyone here, as plenty of the comments in the threads shared above are cheering its return. But for me, it just kind of makes me feel dizzy, like I’m staring at a hypnotist’s wheel whenever I dare to do anything with my phone other than leave it perfectly still. 

My friends at Lifehacker are also split on the issue, but hey, at least the writers over at Gizmodo have my back. Luckily, if you’re like me, you can turn the parallax effect off, but it does come with compromises.

Turn on Reduce Motion

Like turning off Liquid Glass’ transparency, the most effective way to turn off moving icons on your iPhone’s Home Screen involves using the accessibility menu. To do this, you’ll need to navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Motion, and then toggle on Reduce Motion.

Bam, your icons will now stay rooted firmly in place on your Home Screen, no matter how you tilt your phone. Even the new highlights that made Dark Mode icons look tilted for some will stay put (that won’t solve the optical illusion, since it has to do more with contrast than where the icons are, but it’s a nice touch).

Unfortunately, this does come with a downside, because Reduce Motion doesn’t affect just parallax icons. It also tones down your system level animations.

For instance, with this setting enabled, your app windows will no longer slowly minimize into the App Switcher when you swipe up anymore. Instead, you’ll just instantly go from a full-screen view into the App Switcher view. Your mileage may vary on how you feel about that, although I felt like it made my phone less responsive.

Apps also don’t slowly expand out from the icon with Reduce Motion on, instead just instantly entering a full-screen view when you tap on them, albeit with a small unfurling animation that plays at the corners.

Use a solid or gradient background

If you'd rather keep your system level animations, but still don't want to see the parallax effect, you could adjust your background instead. Because the moving icons need to contrast with something to really become noticeable, using a solid or gradient background should tone them down for you without you needing to turn Reduce Motion on.

To do this, long press on your lock screen, then hit the + button on the bottom right. Scroll down to Color and pick a wallpaper you like. You can also make your own gradient and simply save it as a photo, then set it as your wallpaper by tapping on it in the Photos app and scrolling down until you see the Use as Wallpaper button.

The downside here, of course, is that you won't be able to use a photo of your pet or a family member as a background. Unacceptable, I say, but some of my colleagues are willing to make that sacrifice.

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